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Saturday, October 20, 2007

Gratitude 10/20/07

I had dinner tonight with Kira, my ex. Aside from some work related stuff (we both work for the same people sometimes, and even on the same projects), we haven't really talked since she ended our relationship. But we ran into each other at the IFS conference a couple of weeks ago and agreed to get together and clear the air a bit.

I'm glad we did.

It's hard to admit what an ass I was sometimes, and the ways in which I failed her in our relationship. But I'm grateful to her for the time we shared, for all that I learned in our time together, and for her willingness to get together tonight.

It's easy to say I should have done one thing, or not done another -- all the shoulds that echo in our heads from time to time. But it happened as it did. I can no more change things now than I can flap my arms and fly to the moon.

One of the hard parts of life is making mistakes. But one of the gifts of life is that we can choose to learn from those mistakes so that we can become healthier, better people. I think we each have done that in our own way.

I'm amazed by the amount of inner work she has done over the last year. I'm equally impressed -- looking back -- at how much I have grown in the last year as well. The ironic thing is that we both credit Internal Family Systems Therapy (parts work) for much of that growth.